Max Baucus: “in a narrow sense, the Senate today is considering the free-trade agreement with five Central American countries and the…”

“in a narrow sense, the Senate today is considering the free-trade agreement with five Central American countries and the Dominican Republic, but in a larger sense, the Senate is debating how the United States can remain competitive. In a larger sense, the Senate is debating how America can continue to earn $37,000 per person, or more, when there are hundreds of millions of people in China who earn $1,100 per person a year. Little agreements like that before us today cannot be the answer. It may be a partial answer but, frankly, in the larger scheme of things, it is really much less important than the central question facing America today with respect to economic competitiveness. The agreement before us today will not open enough markets for American exports to make that much of a difference. That is clear. No, we need a much more aggressive strategy. On trade policy, we need to try to negotiate bigger agreements--not these small ones, but bigger ones that have much greater commercial value. We need to open negotiations with trading partners who represent a larger share of American trade. There are many examples. We are not doing that, but we should and we must. Time is ticking by. We need to give renewed emphasis to multilateral agreements like the Doha Round. And we need to do a better job enforcing the trade agreements we have already entered into.…”